A Dog and A Gourmet

On summer days that he can manage to sneak past my mother into the house, my friend Zakhmi (he, who is an expert at non-verbal communication) likes to laze about or catch up on his sleep on the floor in my room, while I read or work on the computer or watch television. He generally tends to leave only in the evenings, when the heat subsides and the weather outside is pleasant enough for his evening stroll in the street, unless he chooses to move to another (and cooler) part of the house for his siesta before that and gets evicted by the lady of the house and the thick stick that she wields.

On one such afternoon, recently, I thought I might be able to interest him in some lunch and waved a chapatti in front of his nose a few times. He did not move. My mother even tried to thrust a piece into the side of his mouth, so that he could taste it, but he was having none of that and only clenched his jaws shut tighter.

Then, I noticed diced paneer garnished with tomato ketchup, on my brother's plate. I asked him to wipe a cube of the cheese clean and to give it to me.

As soon as I brought it near the old rogue's nose, his senses appeared to have been electrified and he gobbled it up almost at once. He sat up immediately thereafter and fixed his gaze at my brother's plate. Bite-sized pieces of the same chapatti that he had rejected earlier were made quick work of subsequently, when crushed paneer cubes were applied to each of those.